GALUSHA THE MAGNIFICENT


By Joseph C. Lincoln





GALUSHA THE MAGNIFICENT



CHAPTER I


Mr. Horatio Pulcifer was on his way home. It was half-past five of a
foggy, gray afternoon in early October; it had rained the previous day
and a part of the day before that and it looked extremely likely to rain
again at any moment. The road between Wellmouth Centre, the village in
which Mr. Pulcifer had been spending the afternoon, and East Wellmouth,
the community which he honored with his residence, was wet and sloppy;
there were little puddles in the hollows of the macadam and the ruts and
depressions in the sand on either side were miniature lakes. The groves
of pitch pines and the bare, brown fields and knolls dimly seen through
the fog looked moist and forsaken and dismal. There were no houses in
sight; along the East Wellmouth road there are few dwellings, for no one
but a misanthrope or a hermit would select that particular section as
a place in which to live. Night was coming on and, to accent the
loneliness, from somewhere in the dusky dimness a great foghorn groaned